- Q&A with Susan Bragdon of Seeds for All on the importance of agrobiodiversity and small farmers.
- Going wild for finger millet in Kenya.
- There’s maybe a previously unknown variety of cacao.
- Brazilian germplasm collection data online.
- A very Fertile Crescentic view of agricultural origins.
- Antidote to above.
- Ft Collins USDA genebank in the (local) news.
Nibbles: Lumnezia, Wild apples, Pistachio, Coconut conservation, Tenant farming, Wild cow, Why genotype, Chicken controversy, Blueberry blues
- The ever-dependable Roads & Kingdoms on a very special Swiss cheese.
- The ever-dependable Mongabay on Kyrgyz apple forests.
- The ever-dependable Simran Sethi on how the California pistachio industry got it’s start.
- The ever-dependable Bioversity with a global strategy for the conservation of coconut genetic diversity.
- The ever-dependable Twitter…no wait. Thread on why farmers with a bigger share in their output produce more.
- A cow wild relative in Myanmar.
- Carolina Sansaloni of CIMMYT on genotyping genebank collections.
- Are chickens “rescuing mute, passive non-Western women”?
- Blueberries are in all kinds of trouble.
Nibbles: Lathyrus project, Vegetables review, Aztec linguistics, Tree seeds, Ancient booze
- Grasspea gets some love.
- Hundreds of veggies still don’t, though.
- Deconstructing chocolate. The word, that is.
- Networking tree seeds in Rwanda.
- Drinking in Neolithic Britain.
Nibbles: Transformation, Restoration, Renumeration, Validation, Mensuration, Celebration, Visualization, Diversification, Fructification, Information, Fermentation, Sustentation, Association, Migration, Transformation, Microconservation
- Lawrence Haddad on how to start transforming the food system.
- Here’s an idea: CIMMYT genebank recognized for restoring agricultural diversity in Guatemala.
- And another. Cash transfers are better than more conventional interventions for malnutrition, but they have to be real money.
- But, of course, they don’t always work. That’s one of many development myths listed in this fun Twitter thread.
- We also need metrics, sure, but the right ones, and we may already have them.
- The first ecologist remembered. That would be Humboldt.
- Terrible visualizations of the changing geography of American agriculture.
- But where are heirloom grown? Rice, say?
- And where are all the pomegranate farmers?
- I’m sure there are plenty of grape maps of France somewhere. But what’s with all these varieties? And are there more than in pomegranate?
- IUCN launches a new Red List website.
- Laos launches a sort of Red List website on traditional foods. Here it is. No word on linkages with Ark of Taste.
- Belgian lambic beer threatened by climate change. Now it’s personal.
- In Italy, the landscape needs people to keep it safe.
- Even olive landscapes, which maybe need to be more promiscuous.
- Early agricultural migrations fuelled by cheese.
- Early eggplant migrations fuelled by elephants.
- Microbes to the rescue.
Nibbles: Farm subsidies, Pressing and naming plants, Cowpea primer, California crop maps, Caribbean mangoes, ABS meeting, Banana mapping, Sarada Krishnan, Indian millets, Apple varieties, Early modern bees
- Fun Twitter thread on zombie tropes about farm subsidies in the US. Should have been a blog post, though.
- Kew boffins on how to make an herbarium specimen. More complicated than you might think. And why it’s important. While I’m at it, this is how you use herbarium specimens etc. to name plants.
- IITA genebank manager interviewed about cowpea.
- Everything you ever wanted to know about the history of cartography. Not very relevant here, I know, but a monumental achievement that I wanted to celebrate. And here’s a wonderful example of cutting-edge online cartography that will no doubt feature in a future edition.
- The banana mapping project is progressing nicely.
- Damn, I missed the St Lucia mango festival. Next year?
- Africa discusses ABS.
- Dr Sarada Krishnan of Denver Botanic Garden profiled. She worked on the global coffee conservation strategy. Among many other things.
- Millets to the rescue in Gujarat.
- Red Delicious bumped from top apple spot.
- Amateurs have spread information about beekeeping since 16th century.